Author Archives: mcmorgan

DALL-E mini tests

My little tests demonstrated nothing conclusive. But results suggest that DALL-E mini – now at craiyon.com – might be working on an Art History degree.

I ran cats on tables plural and cat on table singular. DALL-E can count, but seems to lean towards everyday moggies rather than, say, a nice Manx or massive Maine Coon.

Dalle mini cats on tables

Dalle mini cat on table

man and woman talking. I wanted to get a sense of how DALL-E would portray a conversational relation. All the models are white, and seem to be assuming a public space as a default.

Dalle mini man and woman talking

nude descending a staircase. This was to see how DALL-E would handle a classic title. The figure is nude, leans towards female – even though I didn’t specify – but the figure tends to be ascending rather than descending. Or resting. Or missing in one case. That’s DALL-E’s little joke.

Dalle mini nude descending a staircase

This is not a pipe. One-hundred percent accurate. DALL-E knew I was asking for a smoking pipe rather than, say, a length of lead pipe. Both a smoking pipe and a lead pipe appear in one version,: DALL-E’s a punster. It made some interesting choices in placing the pipe: floating over carpets, unnaturally balanced on a table edge, balanced over a lead pipe, a two-stemmed pipe embedded in or emerging from or sinking into a table. Or it may be two pipes. Less Dali and more Magritte or Duchamp for the humor.

Dallemini 2022 6 27 14 19 47

The Gleaners. Or “these are not the gleaners.” This one could get DALL-E flagged for plagiarism.

Craiyon 2022 6 27 14 26 55

Sunday

10:33 AM

Cool, cloudy, grey, windy.

And Jill/txt is back: Can I blog my way out of my pandemic slump? – jill/txt

A Wednesday

Summer is moving along – three panels of the fence came down in the straight-line wind on Monday night.

Is it a Crime? – JSTOR Daily G Stein. Modernist pulp fiction. Compare reading Stein with empathic reading.

The Current “Longest Strawman Argument Article” of 2022 is… Response to The Empathy Racket – by Alice Gribbin. I’m in there with Birchler: The argument for empathy is borrowed from 1950s didactic criticism, and more than shows its prescriptive years.

It’s Art Appreciation revisited. The pathetic fallacy re-woke. It’s in line with reader response criticism, but I’m not sure it offers much that is new. It seems to turn reader response towards the normative and “utilitarian,” and away from the ideosyncratic and functional – but I wonder if that’s a good thing. But response to art as a litmus test has been used for ever.

As Gribbin writes, “… the reasoning behind the default to empathy is … shallow and deadening.” It’s an extension of the psychology reasoning – the value of the work depends on the depth of the psyche – and, as she argues, it places a normative measure on the manner of reading. But that the insistence on reading empathically is made by those who are aesthetically stunted is too harsh and narrow. Normative positions are always narrow, based on half-understood ideas. But is empathic reading a racket, noise? 0r a Ponzi scheme a grift? Might be: The position certainly can be, and has been, used that way (Richardson, and some local poets come to mind). The position is riding on the idea that Virtue is Worn on the Sleeve These Days. But it is facile and adolescent; that is, didactic. Normative. Gribbin gets a little preachy and didactic when she’s framing her argument.

The idea that the empathic reading position is aligned with self-help books is interesting and worth considering, if only to widen it a bit. It’s a narrow connection. But the narrowness of the work at MIA’s Center for Empathy and Visual Arts (CEVA) needs a good kicking because there are more salient ways of thinking about art and social crises. It is the purpose of the museum to address social ills, but how is up for financial debate.

My response: Teach modernism. Make it new.

Giacometti, Drawing

For the First Time in 15 Years, the Most Exciting New Apps I Use are Web-First

Slashdot Sentient AI. LaMDA is not sentient. And even the attempt to side-step argument by declaring belief isn’t going to change things.

Back to MarsEdit

I didn’t expect to return to MarsEdit, but after trying the options over the past week, I have, and it feels right. It’s old school – minimal interface, transfers to edit in BBEdit by default, options and editing tools u[ front. That’s not only welcome but makes some of the blogging moves I want to make easier to impliment: quick posts, for instance.

IMG 0172

Testing REST endpoint and image embedding

Tricky so far to get a REST plugin to connect with an endpoint. Not sure where to start, but a test post is a good place. Update: The post failed to upload using REST: TypeMetal couldn’t connect with the endpoint. Switched back to legacy support while I dig around for help. Update: adding an image from the media library. A little tricky editing the image but very fast updating. Looks like you have to visit the web admin page to add images to the media library. There might be a way of adding to the library from the post ….
interior of restaurant
Interior of restaurant

Deleted morgan’s NewLog

It’s not that is wasn’t working – Bludit is a very good static blog generator – but that I didn’t care for the move, and I couldn’t quite get the template suited. A little apprehensive about editing css. So the blog stands. I’m looking now at new blog editors – MarsEdit and TypeMetal. I want to stay away from the WP block editor, and I need to update the blog to REST access and authentication. The next few posts are tests.

Test 4

Sunday. • Logging tool (LogRec) suitable for tracing Action Code – Tinderbox Tasks – Tinderbox Forum • MarineTraffic: Global Ship Tracking Intelligence | AIS Marine Traffic • TelepaText: text editing, text-to-speech, speech commands, app for iPad, iPhone, macOS and iCloud – imaja.com • The Internet is Made of Demons – Damage • London’s railway of the future is finally here | Engadget Pattern language applied. • “Introduction” in “The Lab Book” on Manifold @uminnpress • “1” in “The Lab Book” on Manifold @uminnpress

Test post 2

Trying to shut off the block editor and then get set up in md.

  • shut off jetpack
  • sharing from Bear still doesn’t work.
  • changed date format from custom to typical US format.
  • Arg.

addition using WP app

I’m adding this in the WP app, which is marginally better than the web interface. I can see why many have left WP for their own scripts and static sites. I should look into that option.

Insert link:

Reading: Intellectual and Emotional Obstacles to Adopting Evidence-based Teaching Practices – improving learning

Insert image (+ sign)

Oil paining of girl at fountain, catching falling water in her mouth.

Roman Girl at Fountain